Category Archives: Absence
The Girl of Ba Speaks - 巴女词
The water of the River Ba is swift like an arrow;
The boat on the River Ba slips away
As if it had wings.
It will travel in ten days three thousand li.
And you are going, my dear -
Ah, how many years before you return?
Moon at Night in Ch’ang-an - 月夜
North of here in the moonlight
She too looks up in loneliness.
I am sad for our little children,
Too young to think of far off Ch’ang-an.
Clouds of hair wet with jewelled mist.
Cold light on arms of jade.
When will we two stir the silk curtains
While one moon shows the stain of tears?
Endless Yearning I - 长相思・其一
“I am endlessly yearning
To be in Changan.
…Insects hum of autumn by the gold brim of the well;
A thin frost glistens like little mirrors on my cold mat;
The high lantern flickers; and. deeper grows my longing.
I lift the shade and, with many a sigh, gaze upon the moon,
Single as a flower, centred from the clouds.
Above, I [...]
Endless Yearning II - 长相思・其二
“The sun has set, and a mist is in the flowers;
And the moon grows very white and people sad and sleepless.
A Zhao harp has just been laid mute on its phoenix holder,
And a Shu lute begins to sound its mandarin-duck strings….
Since nobody can bear to you the burden of my song,
Would that it might follow [...]
The River-Captain’s Wife – A Letter - 长干行
I with my hair in its first fringe
Romped outside breaking flower-heads.
You galloped by on bamboo horses.
We juggled green plums round the well.
Living in Chang-kan village,
Two small people without guile.
At fourteen I married you sir,
So bashful I could only hide,
My frowning face turned to the wall.
Called after – never looking back.
Fifteen before I learnt to [...]
Beyond Seeing - 古意呈补阙乔知之